3 Chapter 3

The afternoon was even tougher. Back-to-back classes of kids with no interest in Shakespeare, poetry, or anything I had to say. The lessons were damage control, not teaching: I broke up an argument that threatened to become a fight, confiscated the cards from the poker game taking place at the back of my second class, and woke up no fewer than three students who fell asleep at their desks.

I persuaded my final class of the day to open their books though they wrote little more than the date. The chances of them handing in the homework I set looked painfully slim. Exhausted, I counted the minutes ‘til I could leave. I missed Lindhurst High, missed the eager, clever students who hung on my every word and challenged my thinking with genius of their own. I wondered how they were and suffered that familiar twist of guilt at abandoning them.